It's the perfect form of
recycling: taking our trash and using it to create electricity. Given the
amount of garbage the average American puts on the curb every pickup day, that
could add up to a whole lot of power. One simple way is to burn trash, and use
the heat to generate steam that can run an electric turbine. But that method
has significant drawbacks; not all garbage burns, of course, and the waste that
does will often produce heavy emissions, including dangerous and sometimes
carcinogenic dioxins. So right now most of our non-recyclable waste — and a lot
of waste that is recyclable — ends up buried beneath the ground.

But there are companies
working on smarter ways to recycle our trash. Costaka has pioneered technology
that can turn biomass waste such as grass or woodchips into gas and eventually
into ethanol. Their process uses less water and has a smaller carbon footprint
than traditional ethanol. The Canadian company Enerkem has a similar process,
but the firm has gone further, able to build standardized, easy-to-install
plants that allow any municipality to begin turning garbage into cleaner
biofuel.